Are we all still here?

[Blazar]

Shame to see our once busy forum not as active. I guess life has got in the way for many of us. Hopefully this year I can get all the scopes out a bit more...Anybody get any astro stuff for Xmas?

I was after a few bits, but Santa was not on the same wavelength! Hope all the dodgers are well...

[dan_uk]

Hey Blazar!

I'm still here sort of, have to agree life has just gotten in the way over the last few years as well as the dodgy garden with no clear view of the sky in London.

I should be back in action soon and actually back in Essex within the next 8 weeks or so :) I do miss the MR trips!

[astro_john_palmer]

Hi, I just got back here after an extremely long hiatus. Dug the Newt out of hibernation, and fell deep into the astrophotography rabbit hole again during lockdown with some of the clear skies we've been having.

[knobby]

Hi John, good to see some new activity on the Essex group 👍 how are you imaging ?

[Blazar]

 

On 10/05/2020 at 14:35, astro_john_palmer said:

Hi, I just got back here after an extremely long hiatus. Dug the Newt out of hibernation, and fell deep into the astrophotography rabbit hole again during lockdown with some of the clear skies we've been having.

What guiding setup have you gone for John?

[astro_john_palmer]

 

On 11/05/2020 at 10:16, knobby said:

Hi John, good to see some new activity on the Essex group 👍 how are you imaging ?

Hey Knobby,

As quickly as I came back to this site I managed to forget about it again, so sorry for the delayed response!

I'm using a newly modified Canon 50D with old trusty Celestron 8" Newt unguided (at the moment).

 

On 13/05/2020 at 13:25, Blazar said:

 

What guiding setup have you gone for John?

Blazar, I ordered one of the ZWO packages with the ASI 120mm and the ZWO finder-guider. To drive it all I have splurged on the ASIair pro. I'm hoping it will integrate everything nice and easily and with a wireless setup. Hopefully I can get a bit of extra use from everything as it removes 1 drawback of astro imaging, getting cold using a computer outside and popping out every 30 mins to check it's not stopped working.

[astro_john_palmer]

For now though (as the ASIair is still yet to arrive) here are a couple of unguided images from the last few weeks of lovely clear skies!

 

 

[knobby]

They're really good John, what exposure length did you manage unguided ?

[astro_john_palmer]

On 04/06/2020 at 15:04, knobby said:

They're really good John, what exposure length did you manage unguided ?

Thanks Knobby. There is a mix in here depending on how well polar aligned I am. The ring nebula and the Elephant's Trunk I think were 90secs, although I had to throw away a few subs for what I assume is periodic error. The whirlpool may also have been over a minute. Dumbbell, Cygnus Wall and Crescent Neb were all 60secs, again with some subs being binned. any more than 60 or 90 seconds is not worth trying for me at 1000mm and a CG5 at the limit of its payload capabilities!

I only recently learned how to drift align since I'm pretty sure my polar scope by itself is junk! That helped a LOT.

All my new "investments" just turned up from FLO so I am now all set up with the ASIair Pro and guide cam for some guiding, a laser collimator (my god, my eyeballing collimation was NOT good!), a dual speed focuser (why didn't anyone tell me how bad the stock one was?!?  🤣), a bhatinov mask (hopefully fool proof focusing now).

The only thing outstanding to be delivered is the coma corrector, then the delivery of some clear skies!!!

[astro_john_palmer]

On 04/06/2020 at 15:04, knobby said:

They're really good John, what exposure length did you manage unguided ?

Oh, and the Cygnus wide field image was with my Canon 85mm lens, so I think I was at 3 mins for those shots!